12th July 2006 Tim Adye 1

HyperNews for LHCbHyperNews for LHCb

Tim AdyeRutherford Appleton Laboratory

LHCb Core Software Meeting12th July 2006

12th July 2006 Tim Adye 2

Outline

• What is HyperNews?• Why switch?

• Advantages and disadvantages WRT Simba2• Why not some other technology?

• Some use cases• How do we get started?

• Start with lhcb-core-soft?

• References

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What is HyperNews?

• For us, it could be a replacement for most Simba2 mailing lists• Also has features of

• web fora / bulletin board systems (like RootTalk)• news/announcement system (like Usenet)

• Not intended to replace TWiki or web pages

• Open-source project• Originally hypernews.org (at least since 1994)• Adopted and improved by BaBar (since 1997)• Now in use by H1, STAR, Geant4,...

• more recently CMS and ATLAS• Continuing development within the HEP community• HyperNews server managed by LCG/SPI

• Now includes an LHCb instance

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Why Change from Simba2?

• Web archive is central to HyperNews• single, integrated, system instead of disjoint mailing

lists• displays threads

• Threads, sub-threads, individual postings have a static URL for easy reference

• easy to browse, very fast to search• I searched for “database” in 250,000 BaBar posts. It

found 18,000 in under a second

• different views, eg.• show recent posts in all or some fora• show whole thread/forum text on one page (eg. to print)

• Can post via the web or e-mail• can post Wiki-like “smart text”, plain text, HTML

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Give it a try in the “HyperNews Test Forum”

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HyperNews Features (2)

• Can subscribe to receive posts as e-mails• Simple and powerful control of what you receive

• Whole forum or individual threads• Automatically subscribed to replies to your posts• Can switch off all e-mails without losing subscriptions

• eg. when going on holiday – it’s all still there when you get back!

• Reply to post with e-mail, or follow link to web display

• ... or keep up-to-date / catch up via the web• “recent posts” page

• ... or some people use a combination of the two• New discussion fora can be requested by web form

• Sends me an e-mail and I then create it manually• still a rather cumbersome process

• includes creating Simba2 back-end, so may take a day or so

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Limitations of HyperNews

• All fora are open to all collaboration members• private lists should remain in Simba2

• All e-mails to/from HyperNews are converted to plain text• attachments are stripped off – give a URL instead

• good practice anyway – don’t fill up peoples’ inboxes• URLs are automatically turned into links in web view

• Used to be a problem with threading posts from Microsoft Exchange• MS hotfix in January (applied at CERN, RAL,...)

• After only 29 years, Microsoft support SMTP RFC!

• HyperNews development continues• Eg. limited attachment support

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Why not use <insert-cool-technology> instead?

• I haven’t done a survey but, for collaboration, I find HyperNews the most convenient• cf. Usenet, BBS (like RootTalk), discussion ‘blogs

• and of course mailing lists and private mails

• It is widely used in HEP, so familiar to some• Ask any former BaBarian, and they’ll tell you how

much they miss HyperNews

• LCG run the server for us• We know the developers

• at SLAC and CERN (Pete Elmer, CMS)

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Discussion fora (1)

• Everyone should subscribe to “HyperNews System Announcements”• New fora announced here, allowing people to subscribe

• Eventually could migrate nearly everything that currently has a mailing list• Eg. one forum for each detector and software subsystem

• In some cases, it is useful to have separate “development discussions” and “user questions” fora• Experts subscribe to, or watch, both• Users post to the latter, receive e-mail responses without

having to subscribe• Can also browse/search this forum to see if it has already been

answered• Soon users start to help other

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Discussion fora (2)

• “Task forces” and system/paper reviews have their own fora• Separates out short-term discussion, while maintaining a

record in the archive

• Can also be used as a shared record of important e-mails• Eg. communications with journals, approvals, minutes of

external meetings, etc.• Just forward them to the appropriate e-mail gateway

address

• I already created some generic fora• Linux, programming, and (La)TeX questions• HyperNews announcements, feedback, and test

• Use “HyperNews Test Forum” to play with the system

• CERN Computing Announcements• Automatic feed from info-experiments@cern.ch

• Chat and discussion that doesn’t fit elsewhere

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Other Use Cases• If a question or discussion has come up before, just

post a link to it• No need to copy text• The questioner can see the full discussion / thread

• Sometimes a discussion strays to another forum’s topic• Post replies in new forum with link to old + quick link

oldnew

• Short-term documentation, recipes, and kicks can be posted as a HyperNews announcement with a link from the documentation• When it becomes obsolete, remove the link

• a record remains of what people recommended

• Sort-term only: not a substitute for proper documentation!• Can easily migrate to Wiki

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How do we get started?

• If people approve, can start using it for new fora right away• Ulrik Egede already asked for one

• Try migrating an existing list, see how it goes• Start with lhcb-core-soft?• Post an announcement to list

• close the old list to new posts?

• Migrate the rest adiabatically, or all at once?• Probably easiest to let each group manage their own

transition

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Would be useful to decide on some forum categories early on

• Currently have:• Computing• Computing Operations• General Discussions• HyperNews

• Could add now or later:• Journal Paper Reviews• Detector Operations

• Perhaps add:• Online Computing• Offline Computing• Physics Analysis• Trigger• Detector Subsystems

• or one category per subsystem?

• National Discussions• Collaboration Matters

• Fora requested by each group, but categories defined in advance• can be changed of course, but not from the web form

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Final Thoughts

• Effective communication is crucial in a large(ish) geographically-distributed collaboration like LHCb• Meetings, documentation, TWiki, and e-mail all useful

forms of communication

• But e-mail has problems when collaborating with many people• private e-mail restricted to those in the loop• mailing lists OK for announcements, not so good for

discussion• mailing lists most useful if also easily used after the fact

• HyperNews addresses these issues• makes collaboration e-mail more Wiki-like• encourages open communication• opens up archive – documentation for free

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References

• HyperNews development• D.A.Smith, P.Elmer, T.Hung,

HyperNews - managing discussions in HEP, CHEP06

• http://hypernews.slac.stanford.edu/

• LHCb instance• https://hypernews.cern.ch/HyperNews/LHCb/top.pl

which will be linked from (if LHCb HyperNews is approved)• https://hypernews.cern.ch/